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358 ‘THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY 


ON THE TRAIL OF THE VANISHING SPRUCE 


By D. 8S. JEFFERS 


IOWA STATE COLLEGE 
AND 


C. F. KORSTIAN 


APPALACHIAN FOREST EXPERIMENT STATION 


THE romantic story of the ‘‘lost tribe’’ has invariably caught 
our fancy, in whatever form it has appeared. There is a wistful 
appeal in the picture of an isolated community, preserving in some 
forgotten corner of the world the manners and customs of a far- 
distant homeland. The original lost tribes of Israel or the fabled 
lost ‘‘ Atlantis,’’ the realm of Prester John, the imagined but never 
discovered remnant of the Aztees in Peru, all these and many others 
have beguiled us, down to the survival of seventeenth-century Eng- 
land that is found to-day in the mountains of Kentucky and Ar- 
kansas. All unknown to many, we have in this country another 
lost tribe, a vanishing race, whose romantic history antedates even 
that of Israel or the lost Atlantis, and which has remained through 
the centuries, isolated in an alien land, and yet clinging persistently 
to the characteristics of its own kind hundreds of miles and thou- 
sands of years away. The ‘‘lost tribe’’ in this instance is not, how- 
ever, a kind of men, but a species of tree, or rather two related 
species, red spruce and Fraser fir, direct descendants of the Cana- 
dian spruce and balsam. 

When northern America awoke from its long sleep under the 
great blanket of ice, animals found new lairs and plants new habi- 
tats. Marked changes in climate had been wrought by the south- 
ward movement of the glaciers. There had been a slow southward 
procession of boreal climatic conditions, which irresistibly set to 
migrating all species which were able to migrate. Not animals 
alone, but vegetation as well, had spread southward in advance of 
the great glacier. Even trees had migrated with the rest, the 
northern species finding new sites as the warmth-loving southern 
species were frost-killed and driven forth. 

In this manner the red spruce came from its home in the north 
and, well in advance of the last reach of the ice sheet, established 
itself in the region now covered by the Central Atlantic states. 
The migration was not confined to spruce alone, for birch, beech, 
maple and other northern species traveled in the same caravan. All 
doubtless became well established in this part of the country, until 


THE VANISHING SPRUCE 359 





AMES FORESTERS 
‘thiking over the hills and far away’’ to the native haunts of the red spruce. 


the glacial period came to an end. Then came disaster. In the in- 
ereasing warmth, the forests of the south must have waged a relent- 
less and successful warfare against their hapless northern rivals. 
Only those trees and plants could escape that could climb above the 
altitude limit of the prolific southern vegetation. This the spruce, 
among others, succeeded in doing, and became accordingly con- 
fined in this region to the highest summits and loftiest ridges, 
where, in the Southern Appalachians, it has persisted all these cen- 
turies and is found to-day. 

The range of red spruce is thus decidedly limited, because of 
the relatively small area that is high enough to reach the bracing 
coolness and the plenitude of moisture spruce demands. ‘The 
Southern Appalachians are themselves the remains of a plateau, 
once higher than the highest of the peaks remaining (6,711 feet). 
Composed of much soft rock, which weathered away, exposing the 
harder surfaces to a slower erosion, this plateau gradually lost all 
identity as such and took the form of the present mountain range, 
more than forty of whose peaks rise 6,000 feet and over. At this 
elevation the temperature is comparable to that of southern New 
England and the sub-alpine climate of the Rocky Mountains. Be- 
cause of the greater elevation, however, the atmosphere is much 
more moist and the rainfall heavier. Here the red spruce has kept 
its hold, with its more wintry range-mate, Fraser fir. The latter, 
beginning in the uppermost part of the spruce zone, grows in almost 
pure stands of small extent, and is the counterpart of the balsam 
fir of eastern Canada. 


360 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY 





Wuat KIND OF TIMBER WILL THE NEXT GENERATION YIELD? 


This crew is running a regeneration survey to determine what the chances are. 


Other compatriots of the spruce have also found lodgment, and 
in the lower part of the spruce belt the hardwoods and hemlock 
of the north mingle with the hardier species. Here all the vegeta- 
tion is suggestive of Northern New England and Canada, while the 
true soil under the trees is covered by a spongy layer of plant 
remains known as upland peat, sometimes more than a foot in 
thickness, and frequently as acid as the peat of many of the Coastal 
Plain swamps. 

Successful in its warfare with nature, the spruce in recent 
years has found certain man-made circumstances too powerful for 
it. War between nations across the ocean has touched these spruce 
forests and decimated them, for modern warfare calls for aero- 
planes and aeroplanes demand spruce and fir of the splendid qual- 
ity so often found in these Appalachian stands. War and a growing 
population in the cities call also for more newspapers, and news- 
print takes a heavy toll of spruce, wherever it is available. For 
these reasons a large portion of these spruce lands has been logged 
over, involving a great loss in streamflow protection and scenic 
value, and contributing but an insignificant amount to the nation’s 
wood supply. What centuries of continuously hostile climatic con- 
ditions could not do to dislodge this valuable forest remnant, man 
has been accomplishing in a short span of years. The Appalachian 


LHE VANISHING SPRUCE 361 





WHAT KIND oF TIMBER WILL THE NEXT GENERATION YIELD? 


This is the kind which has been cut, fine red spruce and Fraser fir. 


spruce is vanishing and may well become extinct if man does not 
repair the destructive work he has started there. 

Details of the logging operations that are clearing off these 
forests will make the situation clearer. 


362 7 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY 





YELLOW Bircu, A NORTHERN HARDWOOD, 
near the upper limit of the Southern Appalachian spruce type. 


\ 


A large portion of this region has been logged over, the spruce 
lands yielding a cut averaging from 18,000 to 30,000 feet to the 
acre board measure. In these operations the overhead skidder has 
been used to some extent to get out the material that lay above the 
logging railroads and at the heads of the flumes. On the steeper 
slopes dry slides are sometimes used and frequently the pulp-wood 
bolts are rolled down the steep mountain sides, a process locally 
known as ‘‘ball-hooting.’’: Frequently, when the saw-timber has 
been logged from an area, the latter is ‘‘wooded,’’ which means, in 
local parlance, that it is again cut over, this time for pulpwood. 
This second cutting removes trees down to about six inches in diam- 
eter. The slash left after logging is a fire trap, and the scarlet 
scourge—the ever-present enemy of young spruce—has taken its 
toll of the remaining small trees, leaving them as gray sentinels to 
mark the passing of the present- generation. Where logs have been 
skidded downhill by horses and dragged uphill by the steam skid- 
der, rain has within a year started to ‘‘gully’’ the mountain side. 

What kind of timber, if any, can be cut from the next genera- 
tion on such desolated areas? That is the important question which 
has confronted foresters and, to some extent, timberland owners 
with reference to the spruce-fir type. The forestry problems of this 
type are of a very difficult nature, and have called for some of the 


THE VANISHING SPRUCE 363 


initial work of the Appalachian Forest Experiment Station, which 
the federal government has established in this region. 

The Forest Experiment Station, however, is not alone in its 
interest in these tracts, and only this last summer was fortunately 











SHORT AND SIMPLE ANNALS OF THE SPRUCE 
eo ae timber; 1918—cut-over; 1920—burned; 1922—fire cherry and 
blackberry thicket. 


364 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY 





THe MOUNTAIN SIDE \ 


commencing to gully one year after logging (horse-logging, in this instance). 


able to effect an alliance with other students of the Appalachian 
spruce problem, to their mutual advantage, and incidentally to the 
advantage as well of the ‘‘lost tribe.’? The opportunity was 
afforded through a field expedition to these woodlands from the 
Iowa State Agricultural College, at Ames, Iowa, consisting of six- 
teen embryo foresters and their two instructors. Engaged on a 
three months’ expedition which ineluded detailed tree observation 
and first-hand study of logging, mapping, surveying and timber 
estimating, the Iowa students were hungry for practical forestry of 
any sort. Sawmills, planing mills, paper pulp mills, acid extract 
plants, tanneries and veneer plants were to be visited in the course 
of the summer, but for a preliminary working-out they made their 
camp in the woods. Thus it was that they found themselves not 
many miles from a field party of four men from the Appalachian 
Forest Experiment Station who had already begun work on a 
so-called “‘regeneration survey’’ of the spruce ecut-over lands, 
gathering facts and figures of the new growth actually RODEO TRE 
on these acres. 

There is an affinity between foresters which a few miles of rough 
going can not dampen; so with packs on their backs the Ames 
foresters ‘‘hiked’’ over the hills to the native haunts of the red 


THE VANISHING SPRUCE 265 


spruce and the Fraser fir, joining the Appalachian Station field 
party in a several days’ search for the elusive spruce and fir seed- 
lings on cut-over lands. 

The unexpected assistance made a 100 per cent. survey possible 
to the Experiment Station foresters, and was a valuable experience 
to the college men. Previous plans for the survey were imme- 
diately adapted to make the most of the opportunity. Strips 20 
feet wide were run across the cut-over areas, literally gridironing 
them. All sorts of conditions, all slopes and all exposures were 
examined. The students, in crews of three, under the immediate 
euidance of a trained field assistant, tallied all the young trees down 
to the smallest year-old spruce seedling, recording also the old 
stumps, and gathering information on various general phases. To 
make certain that every spruce and fir seedling, no matter how 
small, was found, it was necessary to examine carefully every 
square foot of the strip. 

The result of this combined work, as well as that of the Experi- 
ment Station men after the young students had done their bit and 
gone on to other fields of experience, is a collection of figures and 
computations, dry-as-dust to every one but the forester perhaps, 
but of considerable significance as the latest, though it is to be 
hoped not the final, chapter in the romantic episode begun by the 
great glacier some six or seven hundred centuries ago. Whether 
we’ shall write ‘‘Finis’’ to this tale within the next half century, 





At THE INTERSECTION OF TWO SKIDDER LINES. 


Nature may save the situation unless fires come; but the odds favor the fires. 


366 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY 





THE SPRUCE VANISHES IN THE PAPER AMERICA BURNS. 


Forestry students measuring spruce and fir pulpwood before it is shipped to 
the pulp mill. 





WHAT THE GOVERNMENT AND ALL FORESTERS DESIRE— 


splendid 25-30—year old stand of red spruce and Fraser fir reproduction on 
cut-over land. 


THE VANISHING SPRUCE 367 





AFTER MAN AND HIS MACHINE HAVE LEFT, 


the ‘‘Searlet Scourge’’ takes its toll. Cut-over spruce land burned in 1921. 


or whether we shall continue it indefinitely and to our very obvious 
profit, depends upon the immediate action taken as a result of these 
observations. To round out the present account, a summary of all 
these findings may not be amiss. 

On the cut-over spruce lands where fire has not burned, the young 
trees are coming up satisfactorily. These trees were seedlings be- 
fore the cutting was made. New seedlings, dating since the cut- 
ting, have not yet appeared save on the older tracts. Altogether 
.there is enough of this young growth to continue to hold these 
lands for spruce, if fire does not intervene; but there is not enough 
to result in fully-stoeked stands in this tree generation. 

Where fire has come, even though only once, the cut-over lands 
are in a hopeless condition, so far as spruce is concerned. Black- 
berry and raspberry briars overrun these acres, to be succeeded by 
fire cherry and yellow birch, which according to count run several 
thousand an acre and in this region are of no commercial impor- 
tance. | 

Only occasionally on these burned areas are live young spruce 
found, and then around springs and seeps, or along streams, where 
the small advance growth of seedlings and saplings escaped, evl- 
dently because the fire was halted or because it was unable to burn 
the upper layer of soil where seeds were stored. | 

All told, it is evident that the amount of new growth is entirely 
inadequate for a future stand of softwoods on by far the greater 


368 . THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY | 





AMID THE GRAY SKELETONS OF THE SPRUCE, 


jungles of briers, fire cherry and yellow birch grow up. 


number of these spruce burns. If new stands of spruce and fir are 
to be available within a reasonable time, the slow and expensive 
method of planting must be adopted. 

Most obvious and most important of all is the fact that adequate 
fire protection must be put in force on this eut-over land; otherwise 
what is true of these spruce burns will soon be duplicated through- 
out the length and breadth of the Southern Appalachians. In that 
event, the cool mountain streams flowing from hidden springs 


among the spruce-covered rocks, and inviting alike the hydroelec- - 


tric engineer and the profitable tourist, will cease to flow. Down 
oullied, barren mountain sides spring torrents will rush, destructive 


and profitless to any. Throughout the summer no even flow will — 


be preserved; no wheels will be turned; no hiking pleasure-seeker 


will find here the refreshing invitation that brings him to such | 


regions. With the vanishing spruce, the good that it has done to 
the mountain communities will vanish with it. Though strayed far 
from home and though driven to the heights to maintain itself at 
all, the Appalachian spruce has paid its way these many years, has 
made itself a good citizen and friend to man. Now, in its direst 
extremity, turn about is fair play: the perpetuation of the spruce 
type in the Appalachians is the duty of every human citizen and 


friend of the forest. As matters stand to-day, the loss of this tree 
is far too imminent a possibility. 3 








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